Vegan Breastmilk for Sale

Editor’s Note: This blog entry contains the personal, journal-entry-style musings of its author. The diaristic mode is a common one on the “blogosphere,” but critics and pundits still find the time to complain about how boring and pointless it is for people to write about themselves if they’re not living through extremity. If you are likely to be offended by a first-person bourgeois confessional, you are advised to steer clear of this website entirely, and focus on more immediately pressing global concerns.

I am a tiny bit hungover. As I’ve already mentioned “in this space,” after reading Deb Olin Unferth’s interview with Gary Francione in the Believer magazine I couldn’t think of a reason to justify continuing to eat meat or animal products, aside from “it is convenient and delicious,” so I decided to call a temporary cease-fire until I could think it through. So I’ve been vegan for about six weeks. The first weekend in, I snarfed a cookie at a museum and realized later that it almost certainly contained butter and eggs. I also ate half of a hot and sour soup before remembering that the delicious floaty strands are of course scrambled eggs. I’ve been pretty solidly vegan since then. I didn’t throw away the leather I own. I drank a bloody mary that probably had worcester sauce that probably had anchovies in it. I put tofu in the blender for the first time in my life. Tofutti ersatz cream cheese is excellent. I don’t like the herb flavor in their “herbs n chives” variety but if you chop up some chives and stir them into the plain variety it’s good. All other fake cheese I’ve tried is gross, except for the stuff at Gracias Madre. Tofurella fake cheese is not vegan. Vegan pancakes are just as good as non. Indian food tends to have lotsa butter and yogurt everywhere. Today I went to a chinese restaurant and wanted chicken and scallops and beef and fish and shrimp and eggs. I ate a vegetarian hot and sour soup that had eggs in it. I can feel myself caving further. I want to buy large packages of anchovies and sardines. And grill a big salmon, and skewer some fucking shrimps. That’s mostly what I miss. Cubes of cheddar bobbing in the ocean, they can drown. Since I’ve been vegan I’ve grown a full, womanly bosom, and my penis is now shaped like a little vagina. My teeth have yellowed and when I poop it looks and sounds like this:

I adopted a dog on a semi-lark and the dog is not vegan. I walk around craving sea bass with my breast pocket filled with crumbled up sticks of “Pupperoni” — basically low-grade beef jerky. I’m still overweight. Pizza sounds good. Factory farming practices commit inexcusable crimes every day. Dudes argue that even the most humane dairy farm is still not cool for the cows. Cows only lactate if they are pregnant? What? How do dairy farms work?

Beer is vegan. So is Scotch. So is my loaf of bread, and my jar of peanut butter. Poetry is not vegan. Some poetry is vegan but much of it is not. Reading the back of the book is not always a reliable indicator. Reliable indicators are impossible to find in the United States. You need to travel to Thailand or Guam to find them. People with genitals tend not to stay vegan for very long. People argue that they’re more interested in human rights than animal rights, so they order steak. It’s possible to think about and work for human rights while eating a falafel sandwich with no cheese or yogurt on it. What board games are technically zero-sum games? Does anyone want to play online Go with me? It’s pretty fun. I’m sometimes on Pandanet as “quailty.” Hit me up.

What about all the rodents and insects that die when you harvest organic skin creme? The answer is, it’s impossible to go through life without inadvertently hurting some other living thing, but if it’s within your power to avoid punishing some sentient being, then one shouldn’t let the rodents that occasionally get shredded by the creme-thresher justify the punishment of the chicken with its beak ripped off, and so on.

Don’t cave! It’s better for you, better for the animals and for the world, and it’s the morally right thing to do.

It’s true. Cows only lactate after they’ve given birth. The babies they give birth to are taken away from their mothers within a couple of days (the mothers and babies scream for hours) and the cow’s milk is taken and processed until she runs dry, at which point they impregnate her again, and so on, until she is “spent” that is, can’t give more milk because she is calcium-depleted from having lactated so much, and then she is slaughtered. Meanwhile, the babies she gave birth to — most of them wind up as part of the veal industry, where the babies live in tiny boxes in the dark and are killed very young. If you’re supporting the dairy industry, you’re supporting the veal industry. Don’t do it! There’s rice milk, almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, they’re all good for different things and are nutritious and yummy. There are some good vegan cheeses, but I often replace cheese with humus or vegan pesto or black bean dip or basil leaves or cilantro or salsa or taboli or babaganosh or all kinds of things. i put all this stuff on sandwiches or on crackers or tortilla chip for snacks. i eat nuts for snacks too.

If you keep it up, email me. I’m keeping a list of we writer/artist people who are vegan. Not sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but something good….